Taishō
大正Browse Japan’s cultural heritage from the Taishō period (1912 – 1926). Filter by prefecture, type, and keyword, with concise stories, maps, and travel tips.
A 28-square-meter plastered shop of 1912 to 1925 at Makabe, the Miwa Family Residence Shop Storehouse repeats the Edo storehouse form while opening wide for trade.
The Murai Brewery Stone Warehouse, registered as a Tangible Cultural Property in 2000, is a remarkable Taishō-era stone building (1912–1925) in the heart of Makabe, Sakuragawa City, Ibaraki Prefecture. Combining a timber king-post truss frame with Ōya stone exterior walls, this 21.6-meter-long structure remains an active part of one of Japan's oldest sake breweries, founded in the late 17th century and producing the renowned 'Kōmei' label.
The Yaguchi Family Residence Stone Storehouse in Makabe is an early Taisho granite building with a brick cocoon-drying room on its west face. Registered in 2005.
The Yaguchi Family Residence Detached Wing in Makabe is a Taisho guest building, registered in 2005. Its finest room, a 12-mat formal hall, sits on the upper floor.
Yugetsu Honten Hina Doll Storehouse in Mito, Ibaraki, is a black-plastered two-storey kura of 1916, registered in 2015. It still serves as a doll display room.
Kurashiki's Takahashi River Tozai Yosui facilities, finished in 1924, pair a granite-clad intake gate with a 15-bay distribution gate and still feed local canals.
The 1920 concrete head tank of the Iri station in Kagamino, Okayama, regulating water to the powerhouse, with a spillway and steps and walls of cobblestone.
The 1920 retaining walls of the Iri power station in Kagamino, Okayama: 67 m of mortared cobblestone walls along the penstock and around the powerhouse.
The 1920 powerhouse of the Iri station in Kagamino, Okayama: a timber hall with a copper roof on king-post trusses, the oldest in the Yoshii River system.
Okayama Former Bank of Japan Hall, built in 1922 by Nagano Uheiji, carries a Corinthian portico in granite. It survived the 1945 air raid and is now a concert hall.
Okayama Temperance Hall was built in 1923 as the base of a movement against drink. The timber building survived the 1945 raid and still houses a ground floor cafe.
A 1919 timber judo hall at Okayama Asahi High School, built for the elite Sixth Higher School. Springs in the floor gave it bounce, and it survived the 1945 raid.
Built in 1922 at Okayama University's Shikata Campus, this gate raises four red brick piers on granite bases, crowned with Secession-style capitals and copper lamps.
A 22-square-metre timber lodge of 1922 beside the main gate of Okayama University's Shikata Campus, roofed in scalloped natural slate on an irregular hexagonal plan.
The Okina Bridge of 1926 in Tsuyama, Okayama, a small concrete bridge on the old Izumo Highway, has Art Deco-style newel posts that grace the historic street.
Standing in the verdant hills of Maniwa City in Okayama Prefecture, the Worship Hall of Kiyama Shrine is an elegant single-story wooden building designed in 1919 by architect Egawa Saburohachi. With its hip-and-gable copper roof, ornate karahafu front porch, and a Western-style truss roof structure, the hall masterfully blends tradition with modern innovation. Designated a Registered Tangible Cultural Property of Japan in 2017, it remains the heart of a shrine with over twelve hundred years of history.
The Connecting Corridor of Kiyama Shrine in Maniwa City, Okayama, is a small but exquisite covered walkway designed in 1919 by the prefectural architect Egawa Saburohachi. Linking the worship hall and the shrine office in a gentle arc, it showcases carved rainbow beams, paired rafters, a softly curved floor, and a weathered copper roof. Registered as a Tangible Cultural Property in 2017, it stands within a shrine whose history reaches back more than 1,200 years.
Rising 21 meters above the embankment of the Asahi River in Kyobashi-cho, Okayama, this steel-framed warning tower was built in 1924 and designated a National Registered Tangible Cultural Property in 2006. Its four legs of angle steel, braced by distinctive ring-type turnbuckles and crowned by a small watchtower with an iron pyramidal roof, form one of Japan's rare surviving Taisho-era urban warning towers. Together with the nearby Kyobashi water pipe bridge and Kyobashi road bridge, it anchors a remarkable cluster of early-modern engineering heritage close to Okayama Castle, Korakuen Garden, and the much-loved monthly Kyobashi Morning Market.
Observation room of Kurashiki Observatory, Japan's first public observatory (1926), whose iron gabled roof slides apart by hand crank. Moved to Life Park in 2013.
Built in 1915 as the head office of Ushimado Bank, this one-storey bank has German header-bond brick walls and a tall hall with a floral plaster cornice. Now open.